


welcome home

by Blahzor



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Claudeleth Week (Fire Emblem), Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Idiots in Love, M/M, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:22:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25455364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blahzor/pseuds/Blahzor
Summary: Claude's return from Fódlan leaves him exhausted. Luckily, Byleth is there to comfort him by doing what he does best: chastising him into the ground.or: Claude suddenly starts enjoying tomatoes.~day 4 of claudeleth week: reunion
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 7
Kudos: 38





	welcome home

**Author's Note:**

> did i really just write ~4k words of fluff  
> the answer is yes, i love these idiots sm
> 
> written for day 4 for claudeleth week: reunion/pining

“You,” Claude says with weary relief, “don’t know how happy I am to see you.”

The first thing Byleth offers is his smile. He guides Claude to the crook of his neck. The space, the feeling, is familiar to them both. 

“I do know,” he murmurs, caressing the arches of his shoulder. “Welcome home, Claude.”

“You’re here.”

“I am. I’ll always be here.”

He leads Claude inside the cottage.

* * *

“Nine letters,” Claude says at the dining table, sprouting a tiny smile. “I’d dare say that’s a new record.”

Byleth lifts the kettle, screaming to be spared from the fire. He pours the contents into a mug of leaves. 

“It was a cruel struggle to read them,” he says.

The smile matures into a grin. “There’s no gratitude left in this sad world anymore.”

“What I’m grateful for,” Byleth says, “is proper handwriting.”

“That’s strange, I could’ve sworn you’ve seen it before.” Here it comes: “Isn't that right, _Teach?”_

“Just because you were my student—”

“Doesn’t mean you’re still my teacher,” Claude finishes. “Yeah, yeah, I _read_ you. I suppose having you return the favor is too much to ask.”

Byleth’s lips betray him. “You sound like Hilda.”

“Now that was cruel,” he says, “ _Teach._ ”

Unbelievable, truly, that Claude still wore the chaos of indiscipline. Not even a six-month trek through Fódlan had cut a sliver of difference. Byleth thought accords with the Kingdom and the Empire and the Houses of Leicester (how many were there? Ten?) would have rubbed off some maturity, but there must be something in the Almyran dirt.

Byleth would never admit that he prefers it this way. The cloudy days are boring without a touch of hail, a spark of lightning.

So he sets the cup down. “Chamomile,” he says. “To help you relax.”

“All I need is you,” before sipping to negate the statement. He smacks his lips loudly. Insufferable in every stupid, adorable way Byleth could _hypothetically strangle_ out of Claude’s throat—

“Hey, look at this!” he says, slapping the page. “I forgot about the cold in Fhirdiad. Did you know the townspeople wear _three_ cloaks, just to walk in the open?”

“I did not,” as if he hadn’t read the same thing a few months prior.

“The chamberlains had to escort me across the capital. I couldn’t make it on my own.” He shakes his head, hair falling out of place. Byleth resists the urge to push it back. “You’d think the weather would show some mercy to an Almyran visitor. I was quaking in my boots.”

“ _King_ of Almyra,” Byleth points out. “It gets colder, correct? The further north you go?”

“Correct.” He dedicates a sip to the phantom chills. “Gautier is unbreachable this time of year. An ill-prepared army would struggle to survive.”

“And you forgot about this?” Byleth asks in disbelief.

Claude sets the cup down as he places his cheek in his palm. A humming noise escapes him. “Weather patterns come and go,” he says, “when your mind is in a million places. And I’m not just talking about Fódlan.”

That reminds Byleth: “How was Leicester?”

“Terrific.” He tosses the pages aside—now they're making a mess on the floor, Byleth laments—and gestures for Byleth to sit across. “They all send their blessings.”

“They” are still fresh in Byleth’s mind. He writes to them when he can. He still hears them laughing on sunny days, sees them smiling, waving goodbye as Byleth clung onto Claude's waist and Claude let out a whoop before shooting them into the clouds. _You better come back and visit!_ one of them had screamed. _I’ll be waiting!_

“How is Hilda?” he asks above the squeak of his chair.

“Ah,” the grin making its way back. “Well, there go my chances."

“What chances?”

“You know Hilda. _I’m the most important! I’m the professor’s favorite! Claude is a bumbling fool!_ ”

“That is accurate, yes,” Byleth says.

He continues, “When I visited Goneril, she came up to me with a convincing little smile—you know the one—and an enticing little gamble—”

“You accepted.”

“Wholeheartedly. Here were the conditions: if, out of everyone else, you were to ask about her first, then I am to write her a letter detailing all my shortcomings.” He claps his hands together. “Easy, I thought. But here is my own dearly beloved, scheming to betray me.”

Byleth can’t resist. “And what _are_ your shortcomings?”

“Not sure,” he volleys back, “but according to her, it has to include _I am a big doo-doo head_.”

It’s too late for Byleth to catch himself. His lips quirk up and a slight peal of laughter bubbles out. “That,” he says, “is exactly what Hilda sounds like.”

Claude watches him. The wrinkles around his eyes seem to soften, his circles less black and more skin. He’s silent in a way that borders on unnatural.

He says softly, “I missed the sound of your laugh.”

Byleth meets his gaze. The laughter disappears. So does the smile, though it returns with a vengeance bordering on sincerity.

He places his hand on the table. “It’s still here, Claude,” he says.

“I know.” He reaches out as well. The skin is torn, callused. Byleth knows it well. He’s felt it in his palm, felt it brushing aside his hair, felt it tilting up his chin at the first light of dawn. 

Still, it leaves him with a slight shiver. “Claude…”

“Sometimes I can’t believe,” Claude interrupts with those sharpened eyes that Byleth loves to hate and loves to love, “that you’re here too.”

“Are you trying to tell me something?”

“I am,” he says. No need to speak it a second time. Byleth can read it in the graze of his fingers. _I still love you. With everything I am._

So Byleth answers just the same: “And I, you.”

* * *

Claude doesn’t get it. He’s seen crazy things, monstrous things, a demon-rising-out-of-the-grave sort of things, but the most surprising thing is still Byleth’s harebrained decision to perform gardening work with a sword.

“There’s an axe right there,” he mentions.

“I know,” without looking up.

The tomatoes are swollen this time of the year. Byleth is sawing with unnecessary effort. Claude helps by salivating. He’d offered his hand, but Byleth had turned on him in that professorly voice that’s never really left him unlike their days at the academy: no manual labor until he properly rests up.

Which gives him a ticket to sit back, relax, and poke around as much as he wants.

“Your form is a little lacking there,” he says.

“Perhaps if I tried cutting off your head,” Byleth answers.

“Why, you can’t do that! Imagine the anarchy that would ensue!” He searches the grounds, grabs the nearest vine that can support him—cucumbers? _When did we start growing cucumbers?—_ and leans to the side, dangling like it was his life at risk, and not those of the actual zucchini. 

“Hark! The grand king has fallen! Almyra’s in shambles, and there, rising from the dust: the culprit! There’s only one thing we can do.” He raises a fist. “A fitting retribution: off with his head!”

Byleth groans. “Sothis, where are you?”

“But...what’s this? The villagers are scattering! Not in the opposite direction, but...running towards him?” He swings in a circular motion, on the balls of his toes, almost landing in a faceful of onions. “Oh, no! We’re doomed, your Highness! It’s worse than we thought: he’s _hot!”_

Multiple things happen at once: Byleth chokes, Claude pats himself on the back, and the vines tire of his shit and snap.

The next thing Claude realizes is he’s on the ground. His aim must be impeccable because he’s landed right on top of Byleth, his sword safely in the dirt, the tomatoes rolling to escape. Byleth’s eyes are wide enough to swallow them up. Damn, do they look prettier up close.

“...I wasn’t wrong,” Claude suggests meekly.

What follows is the first time that day Byleth struggles—really, painfully struggles, by the looks of it—to hold in his laughter. The second time that he loses control. His laugh is sweet, somehow brighter under the sun, like it was _planned_ to be this gorgeous sort of vision to selfishly overtake Claude’s dreams. And it’s the tenth time, if he’s counting incorrectly, that Claude remembers what he’s been missing so desperately for the last six months.

He’s close enough to go in for a kiss. So he does.

* * *

Claude doesn’t mind most cooking. Saghert is a sad waste of culinary skill, but otherwise he enjoys the meals of his homeland, of the land he once called home. It’s what he leans on. 

This was certainly true when he visited Gloucester and found that time doesn’t change a damn thing. The castle was still an eyesore. Count Gloucester was taking _more_ after his son. There were too many nobles around for Claude to sneak out and find a corner to breathe. And Judith was there to _conveniently_ nag over his duties that _yes, I’m doing them, I’m being responsible, I’m king now and I have to be_. 

Back to the cooking— _that_ was worthy of a letter. Say what you want about Lorenz, but the noble knows his herbs from his spices. Can’t say the same for Hilda, but then again, you can’t for a majority of things.

Good thing he was wedded to Byleth.

“Goddess, you’ve outdone yourself tonight,” he says through a cheek of roast potatoes. “If anyone comes to our doorstep, just let them know I’m busy being the happiest Almyran alive.”

“ _King_ ,” Byleth says like it’s an insult he doesn’t deserve. “And it’s my pleasure.”

Claude sips from his glass, too loudly. “Shall we engage in dinner pleasantries?” he asks. “As a wedded couple wont to do?”

“Go ahead.”

“How was the state of affairs here?” he says. “Terrible, I assume, without me around?”

_‘Quiet’, probably._

“Quiet,” Byleth confirms. “That’s what I’ll miss the most.”

“You’re making me blush,” Claude says sweetly.

Byleth smiles too. “But,” he says, “the months have been...calm. I do what I can. The Almyrans, the soldiers, they all act so kindly.”

“As they should,” Claude says. “You’re someone special to someone special.”

“I guess,” Byleth says, softer than before, “I’m still not used to such pleasantries.”

Claude hesitates then, tomatoes lifted to his mouth. He understands the sentiment. He’s been there before. His came and went in the form of childhood, back when bullying was an everyday occurrence and poisons were more reliable than friendships.

Outer causes, inner causes, it’s one and the same. Sometimes you can’t see the ocean of good, can’t understand its existence, beyond the pile of quicksand that’s sinking you.

Claude reaches out. “Here,” he says, trying to drop them onto Byleth’s plate (it takes an embarrassing number of attempts). “You’re a fan of tomatoes, aren’t you?”

Byleth protests, “But...I grew them for you.”

“I know.” That’s how Teach—no, _Byleth,_ shows off the heart that isn’t his but may as well be. He tries to understand the workings of Fódlan. He oversees the church on Claude’s behalf. He grows tomatoes.

Claude pushes the plate back. “Go on,” he says, “eat up. You’ve had a long day.”

“I’m sure the past year has been longer for you.”

“More like _years”_ —emphasis on the plural— “but that’s what you sign up for. Thrashing in politics and swimming in trade routes. It’s life, it tends to go as planned.”

“Right,” Byleth says. “So these should be yours.”

“Funny, I think I see your name on it.”

“Claude.”

“Byleth,” Claude responds.

He's watching him, his expression carefully smoothed over. Byleth isn’t angry. He isn’t upset. He’s slightly forceful, definitely determined, and there’s a knob between his eyebrows that indicates he knows this dance. He just doesn’t know how to seize victory.

But Claude’s a tactician too. Better yet: he knows how to _actually_ dance. “How’s this,” he begins, channeling the spirits of the countless roundtable discussions he’d been roped into. “The potatoes are mine, but I leave the rest to you. And by rest, I mean the _fruits_ of _your_ labor.”

The strategy is golden. No casualties, a pun free of charge, everyone leaves a winner. Not enough to satisfy Byleth, though. There’s a mountain of steel bristling between his ears. Claude can hear the hours of bickering over tactics and units and _this move is going to get us killed! No, it’s how we secure the win!_

He throws in a wink. “And,” he says conspiratorially, like he’s on the edge of some groundbreaking idea, “I’ll even take the _fish._ Do we have a deal, my good vendor?”

Hilarious, almost, how _that’s_ what makes him cave. 

“You,” Byleth says, “are insufferable.”

“With a capital I,” Claude answers cheerfully. “Now, eat up. I know they’re your favorite.”

Which is how Claude ends up sinking his teeth into the gloriously salted wonder that is perfectly baked trout, and Byleth lets out a little noise. Cute first, surprised second. “This is...sugar?” he says, trying to hide the obvious fact that his sweet tooth is his undoing. “When did you add sugar?”

But Claude is too busy enjoying his fish to gloat.

Well, maybe a little: “You should listen to me more often.”

* * *

“Is this really necessary, Byleth?”

“It is to me.” Byleth crosses his arms. “Outfit off.”

“Fine, fine,” Claude says wearily, rising from the bed. “Though if you wish to re-consummate the marriage, there’s no need to—”

“ _Claude!”_

“Hm? Was it something that I said?” He eyes Byleth’s face. It’s the same shade as the tomato he’d swallowed earlier. “Or should I be more worried about what’s been happening under these sheets?”

He’s seething when he hisses out, “I said, _off.”_ Claude likes that too.

“Yes, sir.” He begins stripping off the cape (always the cape first). Then he’s transitioning from _I’m an obviously important person, heed my every word_ to bare skin and muscle. He sees his chest, the abdomen that’s been getting shyer with passing meals. The old gash across his ribs. When was the last time he shaved?

An unwelcome thought pokes to the surface. He really should stop considering which blood flows more prominently. Nothing good ever comes out of that.

That’s when he notices the silence. Byleth is staring back.

“Am I good to go, Professor Manuela?”

“You’re thinner than before,” Byleth observes stonily.

“It was the diet,” he floats by. “Not all of us can survive on the Goddess’ heart and bones.”

“Less talking, more turning around.”

It’s more than he deserves, so Claude keeps his mouth shut as Byleth undergoes inspection. Circling him, poking at his shoulders, inspecting the scar to see if it’s grown any bigger. He’s going to keep this up until he finds what he’s looking for.

Eventually, he does. “There’s a bruise here,” he says.

“I slipped off a chair,” Claude answers.

“A bruise from a chair?”

“Adrestian floors can be brittle.”

Byleth straightens up. Does he believe him? Or is he just going to stand there and give Claude a pretty view, free of charge?

“You should wash yourself off,” he says, instead of the reprimanding Claude was bracing himself for. “It’s getting late.”

Claude’s turn to blink. “Is that everything?”

“That’s everything.” He rubs a hand over his eyes. Were those lines on his face? _You’re exhausted too, aren’t you?_

Then, much sharper to Claude, cutting his jokes into shreds: _Is everything okay? Did I worry you?_

“I’ll see you soon,” Byleth says to appease none of his questions.

There’s no way to push here. It’s sudden, but Claude thinks he feels the exhaustion too, running down his collarbone to settle in his joints. He had forgotten that reunions come with their small share of strife, as do all things. After the laughter has come and the dust has settled, there are still worries left creeping like weeds over cobblestones.

But it’s different with Byleth. His worries should belong to Claude first, should be his burden to carry. And Claude’s good at reading them, he’s slowly getting better, but it’s a two-way street: Byleth is getting just as good at hiding them.

“See you,” he says as he exits the room, but there’s no answer.

* * *

“Byleth?”

Byleth turns to the sound of his name. He sees Claude staring at the ceiling, as if it wasn’t the dead of night and they were lying in bed and he was supposed to be resting from a journey that could kill ten horses.

“Claude?” he answers, much more weakly. Another dream?

“Ah, sorry. Were you asleep?”

“No,” he lies through his teeth. “What’s the matter? Are you okay?”

“Well, now, how exactly does one define being okay?” He traces a finger through the air, reconnects the dust motes. “If we think about it from a pious point of view, we would need a higher power to believe in. A soldier could see it as surviving a war. As for me, I could see it as—”

“Getting some sleep?” Byleth suggests, since he no longer can.

“I’ve done without it before.” The finger drops, ever-so-slowly. But it’s moving again, drifting across and over the silken blankets to land on top of his cheek. “If you ask me,” he says, his eyes now in clear view, “the answer depends on you.”

“Claude,” Byleth says.

“Have I told you? When people ask about you, I tell them that I think we’re connected by something greater. It’s like...like, when I hear you laugh, for example, I get this giddy feeling that I can’t seem to shake off.” 

“So I should laugh less often?”

“You see?” His teeth are still spotless. “How can I not smile when you grin at me like that?”

“I won’t keep it,” Byleth says threateningly, “if you won’t tell me why you’re awake at such ungodly hours.”

“I missed you too, sweetheart.”

“ _Claude.”_

The bedsheets are twisting. So is Claude, he’s turning to face Byleth as he lies on his side. His breathing is shallow, slightly flushed, though it's the warmth coming off his skin that could light a candle.

He says, “Can I ask you a question?”

“You already have,” Byleth points out.

“Another one, then.” His gaze doesn’t drop, but he’s chewing his lip, the customary sign of a Claude lost in thought. Byleth strangely wants to lick it. 

He must be going mad.

Claude asks, “Do you miss it?”

Byleth understands, but he doesn’t answer immediately. He takes the time to mull it over. Roll onto his side, twisting to face him, such that the space between them isn’t even space anymore, more like a single breath being stretched apart.

“Is there a reason?” he says.

“No, that’s not what I mean,” Claude says, which Byleth already knows. “I don’t doubt your decision. But the smells, the sights, the people you call family. Do you think of them often?”

 _Every day._ There’s a whetstone belonging to Jeralt somewhere in their bedroom, hidden by Claude’s hand and at Byleth’s request. Now Byleth stares at the painting on the wall instead, their wedding captured in oils and swirls (Ignatz really should have charged them more gold.) And there’s the jewelry from Hilda neither of them used, the cake recipes from Lysithea they use too often, Leonie’s training dagger—

“Still with me?” 

And there’s Claude.

“I like seeing you like this,” he says.

“Like what,” Byleth says back.

“Curious. Lost in thought. Gets me all aflutter.”

“You say that enough to warrant disbelief.”

“In other words, you give me wings.” The wink, too, was practically family. “Eh?”

“Shall I slice them off for you?”

“Only if you do it with a kiss.”

The offer is tempting, but Byleth ignores the twitching of his own lips to look at Claude. He’s done that plenty over the past hours, but it’s what Claude _doesn’t_ show that Byleth tends to notice as the stars come out. His smile isn’t real. It’s not in his eyes. There’s something in his raised eyebrows that doesn’t read as genuine.

“What I miss,” Byleth says, measured and slow, “is nothing to worry about. Only temporary.”

“I’m sure there’s a poultice for that.”

“Fódlan isn’t going anywhere,” he continues. “And your friends—”

“ _Our_ friends,” Claude interrupts harshly.

“—they’re alive and healthy,” he says. “At any time, we could pay them a visit. Provided that you're willing to ride.”

“I'm always willing to ride.”

“But,” and his gaze is drifting away from Claude’s, sliding down the lines of his neck, reaching the collar of the cotton shirt sewn from Marianne’s surprisingly adept hands, “I don’t believe...I don’t believe I miss them.”

Claude doesn’t answer. He props himself onto his elbow. Reaches out to brush the dangling strands of Byleth’s hair. 

_Go on_ , his fingers are saying.

“You mention the people, smells, places. I know they’re still there. When I see you, or their gifts, or the sunshine...I am reminded of them. It’s like I can hear them by my side. Or smell. Or see. So...I suppose I’ve never thought of them as gone.”

“I see,” Claude interrupts. “Not a man of sentiments?”

“Perhaps.” Byleth smiles. “I’ve seen enough death to be grateful for anything that is not.”

The name lies unspoken, buried deep in the ground. _Ashen Demon._ He wonders if Claude still thinks of him the same way. Byleth still occasionally sees it staring in the mirror.

He notices Claude moving. Drawing close, leaning over, brushing the rest of his hair aside to plant a gentle kiss atop his forehead. “So,” he murmurs into his skin, “what _do_ you miss?”

“What I _no longer_ miss,” Byleth says, “for it was temporary.”

“Hm.” He lowers himself back onto the pillows. Too far to kiss, close enough for Byleth to think about it. The glint in his green answers his own question: “So you’ve found what you were missing?”

“Correct,” he says.

“And how long were you missing this” —he gestures randomly— “ _thing?”_

“Why do you ask?”

“Was it six months long?” Could others not see the difference in his smiles? Is Byleth the only one? “And this subject of your feelings—does it walk on two legs?”

“More like terrorizes.”

“Handsome? Roguish? Charmingly beautiful?”

“All of the above.”

“Isn’t that strange?” Claude says. Damn that chuckling, husky and low.

“What’s strange?” Byleth wonders.

“My answer is the same as yours,” he says. He lifts a hand. Byleth doesn't have to see it to know where it's going.

“Perhaps you could say,” and Byleth’s hands are traveling as well, into the perfect length of hair for him to run his fingers through, “we’re connected by something greater.”

The roughness of Claude's palm. How it cups his cheek. Pulls him close. It’s the first thing from the night to clear Byleth’s mind and wash away the hooks that had settled into his brain, drawing blood with each passing day he hadn’t seen Claude on the horizon.

Their kiss is the second. Sweet, familiar, tender in a way only Claude could be. He's glad that hasn’t changed.

His words are the third: “Please stop stealing my lines.”

Byleth opens his eyes. It’s not a dream, he’s right here, he’s watching him. Close enough for Byleth to touch without fading and driving him awake. Tanned skin and softened eyes and that _real_ _smile_ he wrote letters back to, the Almyran and the Fódlan and the noble and _Claude._ Every inch deserving of the heart he had stolen from the Goddess herself.

And every bit as irritating: he’s already rolling in the opposite direction. “Okay, good night!” he calls out.

“Now, wait a minute!” Byleth bursts out. “You never answered me!”

He spares a glance back. Byleth doesn't notice; he's too busy staring at the muscles between his shoulders.

“Answer what?” like he’s not being a complete brat.

Byleth huffs. His fault for being compliant.

“The question,” like he’s only pretending to put up with it. 

“Which one?”

“Are you o—”

And he stops. This is because of the things he realizes, all at once, in no particular order: The grin etched into Claude’s face. An urge to feel those lips again to make up for lost time. That this was likely Claude’s plan all along.  
  
So he says this: “Claude, you’re insufferable.”

And Claude’s not acting like he’d led Byleth into a roundabout conversation, half-joking and half genuine concern, to arrive at two separate yet equally vital conclusions: that Byleth didn’t just love him, he'd _missed_ him (how else was he gonna hear him say it?) That despite the worries driving Claude to stare at a ceiling in the middle of the night, he was okay.

Byleth is going to be okay.

Which now makes two of them. So he says this: “I love you, you know that?”

“I do know,” and maybe Claude’s the one in a dream because Byleth is pulling him back. They’re facing each other, lost in each other. Kissing again. His hands are tangling in his hair. It's enough to remind Claude of the second thing he’d failed to find in a continent despite six months of travel. It’s less innocent than a laugh, but, hey, it comes from the same source and fits perfectly around his lips.

And when Claude _does_ find himself in a dream that night, it’s the same routine. Light-green hair, kisses softer than sweet, laughter in the sun. But he has no reason to wake up wanting, because the real thing is standing by his bedside: smiling with a plate of sugar-dusted tomatoes.

**Author's Note:**

> i recently made a twitter  
> <https://twitter.com/blahzor1>
> 
> come say hi! :)


End file.
